Dickson Despommier’s Parasitic Diseases lectures

3 May 2011

Professor Dickson Despommier, co-host of TWiV and TWiP, and well known for his ideas about vertical farming, taught parasitology to medical, dental, and nursing students at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons for 38 years. Below are videocasts of the six lectures from the final version of his course, Parasitic Diseases, which he taught in the fall of 2009. These are excellent companions to the first 27 episodes of TWiP, which explore the basics of eukaryotic parasites including protozoa, nematodes, cestodes, and trematodes.

Also, there’s a story I have to tell you.
My cat was sick on the rug last autumn, and when I went quickly to clear it up I noticed that it was moving!
Yuk, gross!!

But, being a disciple of Professor Despommier, I felt that it would not be right to just scoop up the vomit and worms and drop them in the toilet. So I collected the vomit in to a bowl and lifted the worms out with chop sticks. I then washed them off and pickled them in gin. 🙂
I put them in an old jar, which I then couldn’t bring myself to look at for several weeks because the whole episode was so unpleasant!

The biggest was 12 – 15 inches long and fairly flat (although everybody assures me that it must be a round worm).
My eight year old daughter took them to school, the teacher was quite enthusiastic.

I…uh…good Lord…heh-heh…well…ahh…uhmmm…”So I collected the vomit into a bowl…”…gah…sheeesh…oh…dear…God…help…me…uh…”lifted the worms out with chopsticks…”…ahhh….no…no…brain…my brain…feels…funny…numb…”pickled them in gin…”…no…no…this didn’t happen…no…bad dream!…bad bad dream!…need 10mg haldol i.m. stat!!!…please…OK make it 20mg…stat!!!…OK?…please!!!…”the biggest was 12-15 inches long…”…please…haldol…20mg…now!!!…please???…oh…dear…Lord…no!…

Well, it was bad …. but it wasn’t THAT bad! 🙂
There was only one big worm and now that I’ve measured it I can report that it was actually only 10.25 inches long.
You need to see the photo to aid your recovery, hopefully Vincent will be able to post it.